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| The Lego Movie (2014) |
What I love about this movie is that it took less than a minute to prove that it wasn't just some soulless cash-grab. I'm serious, the first shot of this movie had my jaw to the floor. The animation is just stellar. A lot of people were tricked into thinking this was stop-motion when the movie first came out. It's not, it's entirely CGI, but that's almost more impressive in the end, because it really looks like Lego stop-motion. All the little scratches and imperfections in the plastic are there in the close-ups, and it's that level of attention to detail and care that really makes this movie stand out so much. And everything is animated with Lego bricks. The lava in the first shot, water drops, gun fire, explosions, all of it is brought to life fantastically with Lego, and it really makes you appreciate what Lego can do. Cards on the table, I wasn't really into Lego growing up. I grew up just a little before the age of 'buy the themed Lego kit and assemble it' so what we had were the random bricks you could just build whatever you wanted out of. And I was never that spatially aware or even creative enough to be able to build anything better than a cube. What this movie does is appeal to all sides of the Lego fanbase. You've got your themed kits with the licensed characters, your imagination covered with the inhabitants of Cloud Cuckoo Land and even the perfectionist 'keep the sets the way they're supposed to be' side of things with Lord Business.
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| Chris Pratt as Emmet |
And it's just such a well written story in general. When you break it down, yes, it is just a prophecy 'Chosen One' story, but it really doesn't feel like that when you watch it. Because unlike other 'Chosen One' stories, it doesn't treat itself like the pinnacle of story-telling techniques. It knows prophecies, generally speaking, are bulls*** in movies, and it plays around with the concept. Using Lego to 'build' your movie also gives you a chance to be incredibly varied with your environments. The movie jumps around a lot, from a metropolis to a western to the clouds, to the sea, to space for a bit, but it never feels too segmented and it doesn't break up the action all that much when it happens. The story flows naturally from place to place, and the comedy helps with that as well. This is a very funny movie. Lord and Miller have firmly established themselves as some of my favourite comedy writers in the industry, as they've written some of the funniest movies of our time. It's the sense of humour that really hits me the hardest. It's in-your-face, but in a really clever way, which sounds weird and paradoxical, but Lord and Miller found a way to make it work. This is one of the most quotable movies I've ever watched, and I must have seen it over half a dozen times, and the jokes still haven't gotten old for me.
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| Elizabeth Banks as Wyldstyle |
The cast is perfection. Chris Pratt gets to flex his comedy muscles and he was the only ever choice for the obliviously optimistic Emmet. Elizabeth Banks is excellent in her role, though I wish she'd been given a little more comedy, since she's really funny, but I feel like Wyldstyle is the least funny of the main cast. Will Arnett as Batman, on the other hand, is comedy gold. There is barely a line out of him that doesn't make me at least chuckle. Alison Brie is fantastic as Unikitty, and it's amazing how she can turn from utter joy to blinding rage within the span of one line is hilarious. That gets taken to the extreme with Liam Neeson's Bad Cop and Good Cop. Fun fact: the directors advised him to record his Bad Cop lines separately from his Good Cop lines. He did them both at the same time, which makes on particular sequence all the more impressive. Charlie Day is one of my favourite comedic actors since I watched Always Sunny earlier in the year, and he does a great job as Benny, as does Nick Offerman as Metalbeard, and it's so hard for me to believe that Ron Swanson plays this over-the-top pirate. The man's got range, is all I'm saying. Morgan Freeman plays a great old sage, and for his first fully animated movie, Freeman does as good a job as you'd expect from an actor of his calibre. Finally, Will Ferrell plays a great villain, and his typical 'Will Ferrell' style plays really well against the ridiculous antics of the rest of the characters.
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| Will Arnett as Batman |
So, as I'm watching this movie for the first time, I'm at about the beginning of the third act, and I'm enjoying myself, certainly, but I'm not really seeing what all the fuss was about. By this point, I was the only one in my family who hadn't seen it, and they would not shut up about how incredible the movie was, so unless they were all strict comedy fans, I didn't get it. Then the last 20-30 minutes of the movie happens, and I understood. I don't want to spoil it for those of you who for some reason haven't seen this movie yet, but suffice it to say, it just hits you where you live. It's something I really didn't see coming, and it added so much heart to what was previously a wacky, silly story. These are my favourite stories: the ones that are just fun and enjoyable on the surface, but have a much more emotional core when you get down to it. And that cemented it. Because another thing I absolutely adore in a movie is when I can't predict where it's going. And this was certainly that. Essentially, this movie just ticked all of my boxes as a movie. It's beautiful, it's funny, it's engaging, it's got good characters, good heart, good emotion, a good message, it leaves you guessing, it's got a great soundtrack, and there's never a dull moment. How could I not fall in love?
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| Morgan Freeman as Vitruvius |
The Lego Movie (2014) is one of my favourite movies of all time, and I can think of no more fitting way to bring up my 100th movie review on this website. Just impeccable. 10/10.
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